That said, so those of us borderline hypochondriacs who find a new malady once a week will be spared the panic of said information on schizophrenia, here are the clinical details of the disorder once termed Dementia Praecox (and coined schizophrenie, from the Greek, split mind, by Bleuler in the early 1900s):

While for decades, schizophrenia was categorized into Hebephrenia, Catatonia, and other separate schizophrenias, today many specialists understand schizophrenia in general to include symptoms such as hallucinating, experiencing delusions, having derailed or incoherent speech; and displaying what one expert identifies as grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior.

But further, mental health professionals categorize their information on schizophrenia in the following way, according to their assertion that there are five recognized subtypes of schizophrenia which are 1) paranoid schizophrenia, 2) disorganized schizophrenia, 3) catatonic schizophrenia, 4) undifferentiated schizophrenia, and what they call 5) residual schizophrenia.

An individual with paranoid schizophrenia characteristically shows evidence of prominent delusions, those which are typically auditory and which usually come and go during an episode. The individual may experience delusions of grandeur (how great am I) or persecution (X is/are after me) or what doctors call command hallucinations, wherein someone or thing is commanding him or her to carry out untraditional, unusual, illogical, or illegal acts. Other symptoms for the paranoid schizophrenic include anxiety, fright, anger, apathy, and/or recalcitrance or an argumentative attitude.

An individual diagnosed with hebephrenic schizophrenia now called disorganized type will typically have flat (no) or inappropriate affect (laughing when there is no relevant humor, for instance), and will be disorganized in speech. Personal goals and abilities are limited, so the individual may be anything from unable to care for him- or herself to unable to sustain goal-oriented activities.

For more information on schizophrenia, check Mental Help Net; Health-X; Psych-net.uk; and then consider a personal doctor or referral to a specialist, so the suspected psychotic disorder can be tested and evaluated and, if necessary, treated. Waiting for more or all the symptoms is not encouraged. Early treatment can be everything.

Autistic people have nervous systems that do not seem to be wired properly. They do not know what to pay attention to and what to filter out of their locus of attention. Many verbal autistic people describe a sound that prevents them from hearing the sounds in their environment. This white noise seems to interfere with the person’s ability to process sounds properly.

White noise may be the reason that many autistic people do not process spoken language very well. They have difficulty understanding spoken words and the words often seem to blend together into one stream of sound. Since the person is constantly hearing a humming or static sound, he is unable to focus in on words. Many autistic people have difficulty hearing words when they are used in sentences. A sentence may sound like one long word to an autistic person because white noise is interfering with the person’s interpretation of the sentence.

I worked with a little girl who could not tell the difference between words that begin with the letter W. This can be very troublesome and even a little dangerous. To her, the words, wait and want were the same. I would tell her to wait and she would use sign language to ask for a cookie or a treat. I would simply say, “Nope” and prompt her to wait. I didn’t know that she thought I was asking her what she wanted. She would become extremely frustrated and she would often have a tantrum out of frustration. This interfered with our progress in therapy.

It wasn’t until I read about white noise as a factor in autism that I made the connection. It seems that the similarities between the words want and wait would be obvious, but I never really noticed how closely the words resembled each other until I considered the obstacles the little girl faced while trying to understand what I was saying.

No one is positive that all autistic people hear white noise and no one is sure if they hear it continuously. Until we can find a way to effectively communicate with all autistic individuals, we will not be sure. Another thing to consider is whether we can redirect a person who hears white noise. There may be no intervention that can overcome that obstacle. However, the more we come to understand white noise in relation to autism, the more we can determine how to manage it.

Each speech pathology is unique, and they have a variety of origins. Some speech pathologies have social or psychological origins. Most stutterers, for example, have nothing wrong with the structure of their brain. For some reason, usually relating to some phobia developed while they were learning to speak, stutterers are unable to complete their phrases smoothly. This is usually worse in stressful situations. But, although stuttering is a speech pathology, nothing is physically wrong with the stutterers brain. The role of the speech therapist is half psychologist, half coach, to help the stutterer gain the confidence to talk in public situations.

Unfortunately, more than one speech pathology goes much deeper than that. Traumatic head injury, for example, can cause speech pathology, as can Alzheimers disease, birth defects, and many other conditions. People develop all types of strange and exotic problems as the result of brain damage, and these often result in speech pathology. Sometimes someone can think quite clearly in words, but frustratingly, can no longer articulate his mouth to form them. It takes great patience to cure this speech pathology (when it is curable, which isn’t always) as the brain has to physically rewire itself to make up for the part that was damaged. Other times, someone will lose the use of a whole group of words like, say, the names of tools. Other times, they might have use of all of their words but no longer have a grasp on the rules of grammar.

There are many programs in speech pathology available all over the country, and it is a job that is likely to remain in high demand. Speech language graduate programs are held at many of the most prestigious universities, and benefit from the latest science in neurology, psychology, and linguistics. If you like figuring out puzzles while helping people, or if you are fascinated by the human mind, a speech pathology career might be for you.

I have a friend who went into speech pathology in order to provide help to his nephew who is suffering from stuttering. It seem that having a familiar family member as your therapist works wonder. His nephew now only stutter under extreme stress.